Love is a religion,
and his cult must in the nature of things be more costly than those of
all other deities; Love the Spoiler stays for a moment, and then
passes on; like the urchin of the streets, his course may be traced by
the ravages that he has made. The wealth of feeling and imagination is
the poetry of the garret; how should love exist there without that
wealth?
If there are exceptions who do not subscribe to these Draconian laws
of the Parisian code, they are solitary examples. Such souls live so
far out of the main current that they are not borne away by the
doctrines of society; they dwell beside some clear spring of
everflowing water, without seeking to leave the green shade; happy to
listen to the echoes of the infinite in everything around them and in
their own souls, waiting in patience to take their flight for heaven,
while they look with pity upon those of earth.
Rastignac, like most young men who have been early impressed by the
circumstances of power and grandeur, meant to enter the lists fully
armed; the burning ambition of conquest possessed him already; perhaps
he was conscious of his powers, but as yet he knew neither the end to
which his ambition was to be directed, nor the means of attaining it.
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